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Please come visit me here –> The Mosaic Me
Pretty please?
Ok, pretty pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top?
Oh just do it!
For us mom’s we were either pregnant during our first Mother’s Day or had that beautiful new baby… and in some cases, babies. For me, I was pregnant and getting ready for the birth of my first son a few weeks later. There is nothing like that first Mother’s day. When it comes around you feel like you are finally part of an elite club and your new membership card is all shiny and wonderful.
If you were pregnant during your first Mother’s Day then your husband probably did something cute like get you a nice card from your future child, some gorgeous spring floral bouquet and maybe even took you out to a nice breakfast… to enjoy the solitude before the storm of parental duties set in.
If you were in the throws of sleepless nights and size 0-2 diapers on your first Mother’s Day then your husband hopefully let you sleep in and did all the diaper changes that day, along with a nice card and maybe even a pedicure. You probably got flowers too.
In either case, you were probably ecstatic to be able to finally relish in the day yourself instead of making sure your own mother got a card and some flowers on time. Well, of course you still made sure your own mom got her card and flowers on time. And if you were like me you may have even said to your husband something like “Oh, thanks sweetie! You didn’t have to do that! I don’t mind! I’m a mom! This is great!”
A year goes by and soon another Mother’s day is upon you. This time you have a toddler in tow and crumbs in your hair. Your husband and toddler make you breakfast in bed and you eat a very oddly shaped pancake created just for you by your child. You receive a beautiful card signed by your husband and child and a small bouquet of flowers. You enjoy your morning and then get up to begin the rest of the day of light duty, even though you still vacuum, do some dishes and change a few diapers. Your husband tries to make sure you have a day of rest but you insist that it’s not necessary. You love being a mom!
Year three comes fast and you cannot believe that you have a child who is potty training or in preschool already! Where did the time go? By this point you may even have a second child or one on the way. Mother’s Day is filled with special construction paper cards adorned by child-sized hand-prints and probably a cup full of “special” dandelions picked just for you by your child. You are greeted in bed with the cards, breakfast and dandelions and you smile so bright that the house lights up. You even go back to sleep for a little while. Later, your kid or kids try to help out a little more on this day as you get them ready to head out to a Mother’s Day gathering with family. You try to wash a few dishes but your husband comes and takes over the duty so you can relax. Instead of putting up a small fight you relinquish control and let him finish the dishes and you head off to find something else to do.
Mother’s Day #4 arrives so quick that your head is still spinning from the previous year. There is a small family gathering planned at your brother-in-law’s house and you get up to start the day and finish the side-dishes you are supposed to bring. Your husband kisses you and say’s “Happy Mother’s Day honey!” and you head upstairs to dress the kids. Suddenly, you turn around and say, “you know what honey? would you get the kids ready for me? ” and you go back to sipping your coffee. You decide to try and relax just a bit on this fourth Mother’s Day. Even though you didn’t get a card from your husband, you still love the little things your kids made you in preschool and figure that it’s enough. Soon, they come running down stairs dressed in clothes that don’t match and scream “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY MAMA!” You smile and hug them tight. When messes are made you pretend like you are going to clean them up but secretly hope your husband takes over. When he does, you smile and thank him. If he doesn’t you clean it anyway and think, “jeez! would it be so hard for you to take care of this, especially today!?”
Mother’s Day #5 comes. You got your Mother’s Day gift 3 weeks earlier in the form of a pair of shoes you just had to have even when the funds were running low. You agreed with your husband that those would suffice as an early Mother’s Day gift. He didn’t get you a card but you got a sweet Mother’s Day kiss and some coffee. Your kids hug you and say “Happy Mother’s Day” and then run outside to play. You need a shower but feel too lazy to take one. You have to be somewhere at 1pm for a family gathering and you are procrastinating. The had kids dressed themselves while your husband watched SportsCenter. He needs a shower and the kids are wearing completely mismatched clothes and you have to ask them if they remembered to put underwear on. You grab your coffee and a donut and make sure you wish all your friends and family a happy Mother’s Day. The kids are fighting, your husband is trying to run interference and there are dishes in the sink.You have no plans to touch those dishes and if he expects you to you will probably kick him in the nuts.
We can only imagine what the 6th Mother’s Day will be like… I will let you know when I get there.
Happy Mother’s Day to ALL of you amazing and wonderful mom’s out there! God Bless all of you!
For most of my life I have had a bad habit of basing my self-worth by the accomplishments, failures, talents and traits of other people. If I met someone prettier than me, I was jealous and called myself a troll. If I met someone smarter than me, I was dumb loser. If I met someone with any amount of talents, I was just a sad, boring shell of a human.
If you are thinking that I’m dramatizing my thoughts or embellishing my feelings then you are dead wrong. Those thoughts are 100% authentic and true, because I’m dramatic. You can probably imagine the antithesis to those feelings when I was among people who didn’t seem prettier, smarter or more talented than myself. That is an ugly truth and by-product of my insecurities.
So, the entire problem lies with judging myself by other people. The rest of the world’s population are not my own personal barometer for my worthiness! Recently I figured this out because of certain circumstances that I had never experienced before. After that I swore to myself that I would not let anyone else make me feel like I’m not worthy whether it be anything they said to me or by just feeling they are superior. Unfortunately it’s not easy to break a lifetime-long bad habit.
Today, I slipped back into the old ways and felt like an untalented, crappy mother. Now, judging my personal values and self-worth before kids was bad enough; I’m not as skinny as my friend’s girlfriend or I don’t have as nice a car as my co-worker does. Whatever the case was I could find a way to feel inferior. Well, after having kids that issue compounded itself and became 100 times worse. I believe mommy-envy is a major problem for many women. If we see a mother doing something better than us we naturally get jealous… well, not every mother does, some are actually secure in themselves to not let this happen. Becoming a mother made me almost competitive. My friend’s little boy is not even two yet and knows some letters of the alphabet by sight. My boys didn’t know that at his age. Oh my gosh, where did I go wrong!? Can I flip a switch and go back in time and teach my boys their letters sooner? Heh. Riiight.
I blame myself for so many things. I also happen to be fighting the ghost of my father and trying not to be like him, but I slip so often. Sometimes I think that I’m so consumed in fighting off my dad’s bad habits and worrying about being a good mom and keeping a clean house that I forget to just breathe, sit down with the boys and not move. I should read more books, play more games and not worry so much about the little messes. I’m too controlling to let that go though. I’m too wound up all the time. Sitting down and just being with the boys means there are other things I’m not getting down. Plus, I know that being with them won’t be peaceful for long because one of them will want to read one book and the other won’t and then the drama starts… or something else begets a fight… so I don’t bother usually. Deep down I think that I’m doing the best that I can. But the daily self-reminders of how I’m not a “playful” mother, I’m not a spectacular photographer and don’t have amazing photographs of my kids, I’m not a world-class cook who can whip up kid-friendly creations to eat and I’m certainly not a calm and centered parent are just too much to handle sometimes. Today was one of those times….
Awhile later, as I was going about my day here at home, tidying the house and doing laundry, I heard my boys in the shower screaming at each other. A bit later they were upstairs screaming at each other. Earlier, before the shower, they were fighting over the coloring book and paint brushes. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks….
I’m raising these two boys, who were at one, long point in time both in diapers and I would love to see someone step into my shoes and do a better job than me. Maybe they could. Maybe they would display more patience, better referee skills and a better execution of discipline. Sure, I don’t doubt that one bit. But, in my heart of hearts I know that I am doing the best job that I possibly can. Parents make mistakes all the time and I am definitely one of them. I’m ok with making mistakes, as long I don’t repeat them…. often.
People have no idea what my boys put me through, day in and day out. They reserve all of their best stuff just for me and their daddy. So, when I’m beating myself up over ruining my kids or being a bad mother I just think about how I have two boys…. two boys who are crazy and outnumber me. The things that I would love to do with my boys are not always possible because of our specific dynamic. Believe me, I have tried. Simple things like spreading out a mat and letting them play with play-dough is a huge production. They fight over the colors, they throw the play dough at each other instead of using it the way it’s meant to be used, they find ways to scatter it all over the place, including my floors, etc, etc.
My boys make me work, hard. I do the best I can (most days) to be the mom they deserve. But, honestly, some days I’m lucky to make it through in one piece. They have a talent for reaching every single last nerve in my body and twisting it in a way that makes me want to climb out of my own skin. Then, there are days when they are really good and I forget about the day before. Regardless of what kind of day it is, I wrap my arms around those boys and never want to let go. I said in an earlier post that I feel like I’m holding the entire world in my arms when I hold them both… they are still little, and cuddly and still need me. Someday they might be taller than me and my hugs won’t mean the same things to them and they might push me away. I just hope that if or when that day comes they remember how much I love them and how hard I tried to be the best mom to them that I could. I hope they know that I poured my heart and soul into them and made many mistakes along the way.
This world is full of talented and beautiful mothers and I am happy to know those specials ones in my life. At first I thought I was inferior to them and while technically maybe I am, it doesn’t mean I’m not good enough. In fact, they make me strive to be a better mom, a better friend. Instead of being jealous of them I need to just try and learn from them and remember that I’m special too.
My self-worth isn’t based on the people I meet or the beautiful moms who surround me. They are all special and wonderful and despite what I might try to believe, they aren’t perfect…. and neither am I. This is something I have to remind myself of daily in order to really change my way of thinking. A good way to remind myself of that is by asking this question…
“When I’m on my deathbed, am I going to regret not having a perfectly clean house or not reading more books to my kids?”
Well, I haven’t been kidnapped from the trail yet so that’s a good thing. I really haven’t had much to write about and I guess I spend most of my time on Facebook, when I’m not doing laundry, dishes, cleaning, being a parent, driving the kids to and from school, running errands and so on.
Unfortunately I have not been out on the trail in the last 2 weeks and I miss it. It’s mostly because of the weather and since the weather has been crappy on most of the days that I could have gone out on the trail, well, it has caused me to lose my motivation. The wind is a BIG hinderance to my walking, too. If you have even been to Chicago on a windy day you might understand. So even when the weather was semi-decent, I couldn’t go out walking because the wind would irritate my eyes and generally make me miserable on my walk. Remember, I hate the wind…. at least the wind here. I hope to get back out there soon. Very soon. But, the weather is yet again, crappy. Very very crappy.
In the meantime I have been doing a lot of Spring cleaning and organizing. It feels so great to accomplish everything I have wanted to do. I also consider that cleaning as a form of exercise so I’m not being sedentary or anything, despite not going on my power walks. I am even drinking… (gasp) WATER! Ok, not nearly enough still, but I am drinking it daily. That’s a huge step.
Spring is definitely here, even though the weather has been crappy. Everything is green and budding and my lilac tree is on the verge of blooming. That is my most favorite sight in the Spring. Along with the emergence of Spring comes a lot of yard work, of which we have yet to begin. That is last on my list of Spring duties and of course means the weather needs to be sunny… not rainy like it has been. So the yard work is on hold for now.
My yard work goals this Spring/Summer are to convert each of my little flower beds into wildflower beds and continue to use hostas as ground cover in other areas. I also want to get a compost pile started. This will take a bit more work and cooperation from the husband… which he is not really willing to cooperate yet. So I must turn on the “wear him down” technique and see if that convinces him to help me.
Aside from all of that, in case you haven’t noticed the date yet, it is April 28th. This day may not be important to any of you but it should be, because it is my awesome sister-in-law’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLIVIA!
ehem….
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday deeeaaarrrrr Oliiiiiviiiiia!
Happy birthday to YOU!
Hennyway, I realize the boring nature of this post and hope you aren’t asleep yet. If you are even there, of course. Hopefully more exciting posts will follow but given my recent track record, don’t count on it.
So, let me leave you with the question for the day…
If you only had three things to teach your children before you left this earth, what would you want them to know?
You may have thought that I was crazy before reading this post. You may have even entertained the thought that committing me in an institution might be the best thing for human nature. And, after reading this post you may wind up feeling completely validated in those feelings and end up sending messages to my husband who is now on Facebook (thanks to me) that he should run for his life and take the children with him.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, hubs and I are really trying to make healthier choices and I have added walking/running into my weekly activities. I have not succeeded all that well in the food department as I have eaten a lot of milk duds and Easter candy along with the broccoli and yogurt with granola. I justify this by truly believing that as long as I’m walking/running each week that I can have all the candy I want. Delusional, yes.
I am succeeding in my exercise program, however. I manage to complete my walk/run a few times a week now and my stamina is increasing rapidly. I have a great running mix of music that I made as a playlist on my iPod and it really motivates me and helps me keep at a quick pace. We are fortunate to live in an area that has a bike trail which goes for miles and miles. I jump on it a block or so behind my house and take it for about a one mile or so before I turn around and head back. The trail is straight and cuts through the heart of my neighborhood and then right behind our mall area and on through a wooded and uninhabited area and so on and so on.
It is in this “mall” part of the trail where it gets a bit more lonely, seedy and honestly unsettling. The entire trail is lined with trees and in the area behind the mall there are large swampy ponds, creeks and backwaters as well. People will pass on bikes or on foot and a courtesy wave will be given. Occasionally one will pass a single person who isn’t exercising but rather simply wandering aimlessly aside from the fact that they are on a straight trail.
I tend to take my walks in the evening hours because that is when hubs is home to watch the boys while I’m gone. Spring is coming and it stays lighter a lot later than it did in the winter so evening walks are not a problem. However, this does not mean that macabre, morbid and gruesome thoughts don’t permeate my head as I pounce through the trail while listening to “Pump It” by the Black Eyed Peas and “1999″ by Prince.
My ghoulish mind tricks might be the result of watching too much CSI, Law and Order and Without A Trace episodes. In fact, they must be. Regardless, they cloud my exercise euphoria and cause me not to fully enjoy my temporary freedom. As I pass the swampy ponds I imagine bodies floating to the surface. Each person that passes me who doesn’t seem to be walking with a purpose causes me to stiffen up and clench my fists somewhat.
There are parts of this trail that just seem destined to have a dead body found and may even already contain a few missing persons; in my mind anyway. I imagine a man jumping out from the trees to snag an unsuspecting woman who is just out for a run. The next thing we know she is on the 10 O’clock news as a missing person or just another body found in a wooded, swampy area.
I try to shake these thoughts from my head, I really do. I try to to enjoy the fresh, crisp air and lose myself in my music but I just can’t fully let go. And, to be honest, I believe that is a good thing. I need to be aware of my surroundings. I need to know when there are people behind me or if there are any freaks lurking behind some trees ahead of me. I need to be ready. The way I see it is that I’m new to this whole “exercise” thing and the way my luck works I would be the one trying to better myself, lose weight and get healthy only to end up dead and floating face-down in the beaver damn behind the Target. Sigh.
Tonight, just when I thought I should let my guard down and lose myself in the high I came upon a very cagey man. Prince’s “1999″ had just finished and I was on the last two songs of my playlist, the slow down pace. “Homecoming” by Kanye with Chris Martin was playing and as I got closer to this man I got more nervous. He was one of those people on the trail who wasn’t there to exercise and probably wasn’t soul searching to find a higher state of existence.
He was carrying a brown paper bag and I could see he was wearing headphones. He was walking down the left side of the trail and there was no one else around except him and me. My pace quickened as I got closer to him. He was walking slowly and aimlessly and then he stopped. He took a beer out of the paper bag and took a long chug. Then, he lit a cigarette. At this point I pretty much imagined my own demise. Snatched, screams muffled, beaten and.. well… hello Heaven.
I got very, very nervous as I approached him. I watched his every move and just waited for the seconds it would take me to walk by him to pass so I could breathe again. I felt the tension in my chest and sensed the feeling of him grabbing me and pulling me into the trees. I felt validated in my crazy thoughts for once! As I passed him I kept turning my head to the left to use my peripheral vision so I knew where he was. Once I was several steps past him and his puffs of smoke I removed my headphones so I could listen for quick footsteps behind me. I walked faster.
Soon I was well beyond him and let my guard down a tad; just a tad. I kept my headphones off and walked the rest of the way home in silence, save for the sounds of teenagers, a pick-up baseball game and cars passing by. I began to think, maybe he is just a sad alcoholic and likes to take evening walks in peace. Maybe he just had a fight with his girlfriend and stepped out to clear his head. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. That trail is open to everyone; you certainly don’t need to be on a mission of health or anything to use it. But, he was the epitome and perfect profile of a serial killer so that benefit of the doubt didn’t get far with me.
If he was a normal, honest person, he had to realize just how sinister his actions might appear to a woman walking by. And, if he were truly a rapist, murderer or abductor, then he knew exactly what he was doing; he was the perfect cliche of a snatch-and-kill man.
Alas, I made it home safe and sound. Regardless of his intentions, I’m not taking the trail in the evenings anymore unless I’m on my bike. Or, if I do take the trail, I won’t take it as far as I did today. I simply want to enjoy my time out there in the fresh air and not worry about every person I pass. I figure that if I change up my routine, stick to the neighborhood streets a bit more and ride my bike on some evenings then maybe I can relax and enjoy myself.
I am fully aware that I’m a morbid thinker but I figure it keeps me alert and might actually help, in my twisted logical fashion. I find it incredibly ironic how I can feel so completely distrusting in this type of setting yet be so naive and trusting with other, complete strangers in different scenarios.
As always, I am the perfect blend of consistent inconsistency.
I am often dumbed down by my friend’s son. Today was no different. He spent the night with my boys last night and when he and my older son, DramaBoy, woke up, I guess C started telling him some old ghost stories and legends. Later on, after breakfast, C was telling me how he had told my son some cool old ghost stories like the one about the Flying Dutchman.
I was like, “Oh yeah, like that one on SpongeBob, right? They have a flying Dutchman on Spongebob!”
He paused and said, “Uuum, no. As in the Legend of Davy Jones… you know?”
Once again I looked like an idiot to an 8-year old.
Then, to make matters worse I had to Google “Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman” just to figure out what it was. I had heard of it before but not in any way that would explain the legend or that it was even a legend.
That is when I found a small semblance of satisfaction and a return of my pride… care of Wikipedia.
In the Spongebob Squarepants episode “Born Again Krabs”, Davy Jones’s Locker is shown to be the underwater equivalent of Hell, being “the resting place of all bad undersea folk”, literally being a gym/school style Locker, and also containing smelly socks belonging to Davey Jones himself (“…he works out a lot”). The Flying Dutchman takes Mr. Krabs to Davy Jones’s Locker after he is fatally poisoned from eating a rotten old Krabby Patty, and Krabs begs him to give him one more chance, promising that he will no longer be cheap.
SEE! I was right! Sort of…
Everything I need to know I learned from SpongeBob. All hail SpongeBob.
I went out to get lunch today for my mother and myself. Panda Express sounded good, as it always does. That orange chicken is just scrump-deli-umptious! As I walked in I noticed the line was pretty long. Lunchtime rush. As I got closer to placing my order I noticed the line behind me was even longer and the people waiting were all from the local high school. My high school. That is, the one I actually graduated from (Red Mountain). Not the one I liked or had many friends at (Kofa).
Panda Express is one of many popular lunch spots for the high school crowd, so it seems. That particular one wasn’t there when I was in high school. We didn’t have many options in the immediate area at that time because it was a new area, still developing. Now those kids have options piled on top of options.
I stood in line feeling pretty uncomfortable, but that is nothing new. I get that way when I’m in a place and surrounded by teenagers. I imagine them making fun of me and laughing at the dork in line. It’s just something I can’t get past. Sometimes I think, well, maybe they are saying, ‘wow, what a cool lady’, but that thought passes quickly as I try extra hard not to do anything to embarrass myself like trip and fall.
I was wearing jeans and flip-flops and my Dr. Pepper shirt. I refused to take my sunglasses off because I didn’t have any makeup on and I didn’t want to look dorkier than I already did. My big, fat mom-hips were already sticking out for everyone to see. I began to think of the teenage girls in there whispering to their friends “God, when I’m old and married, I hope I don’t look like that…”
I finally placed my order and then noticed the girl behind me was wearing a Red Mountain letterman’s jacket. Nevermind that it was 80 degrees outside. She was also wearing jeans with flip-flops. I smiled inside and began thinking back to my Red Mountain days and how badly I wanted them to end. The simple ability to leave campus for lunch with my boyfriend was my serenity, my escape for an hour. Even though we didn’t have a Panda Express to go to without going into the mall a few miles away, I at least had a way to leave and get away from the school and be alone with my boyfriend. Sometimes it was just me and a friend that would go to lunch… those were the days that my B/F wasn’t able to come and get me. Either way it was liberating.
Here we were, still bound by our parent’s rules and tied to school with homework and making good grades. But at lunch time we could escape, drive away and feel grown up and cool. I always felt uber-cool when I would head out to lunch in a friend’s car… either at my first high school Kofa or my new one. In either case it was just awesome to be able to leave campus for that one hour and go eat something other than horribly uncool cafeteria food. In Yuma we had a ton of places that my friends and I would go to like Chili Pepper or Mr. G’s or the typical fast food. At Red Mountain choices were more limited but that didn’t really matter. It was the escape that mattered. One time, my boyfriend and I just went back to his house and had sex for the first time. I lost my virginity over a lunch escape from school in October of 1992 just before I turned 17. Then we ditched school the rest of the day.
All the kids in the Panda Express today were pretty tame, calm, well-behaved. I seem to recall my friends and I (in my Kofa days) were probably a little more loud and obnoxious. Maybe it was the zen of the restaurant that had that effect on all the teenagers. Either way, I wanted to say to any one of them, “Hey, I graduated from Red Mountain! What is it like these days?” But, then they would either ask, “What year did you graduate?” and I would say 1993 and be completely humiliated from their boisterous laughter or they would say, “Damn! I didn’t think Red Mountain even existed way back then!” So I just went on pretending that I didn’t even notice them.
I wondered about them though. I looked at one girl and tried to picture her 15 years from now. What would she think when she goes back to her high school years in her head? Will she be married with kids or jet setting around the world or just a drug-addicted fool? Will she laugh at herself? Will she hate who she was? Will she long to go back to those days? God, she has a whole life ahead of her… and I cannot believe that I am the adult, looking around at all the kids who were born around the year I graduated from their high school.
I have spent so many years trying to forget all those years because I thought I was just a joke of a person and hated my youth. But now, as I get older and I’m the adult, my younger days seem to be flooding back into my life and they actually make me happy. I think back and smile and laugh. This has opened to door the other parts of my life that I rarely ever recalled and I feel full again. I also feel old. So very old.
It is an odd thing happening to me right now. Going back in time has fulfilled me and made me realize who I was and can still be. I don’t feel so empty and resentful anymore. I can go back in time and not shudder in horror… well except when I recall certain outfits I wore or hairstyles. Getting in touch with old friends has really enriched my life in ways I never even imagined. I was so sure I wanted to erase the past from my head and just go forward from the day I got married the second time and then had my kids. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. My life may have begun a completely new chapter in 2002 when I moved to Chicago but it didn’t begin like I was trying to think it had.
I had been living in the past with nothing but regrets and resentment and trying to forget it all and hoping my current life would just move on farther and farther away from it all. But I have just found that bringing it back and talking with people who knew me then makes everything more tolerable, fulfilling, complete. I feel real again. I feel like I can give my husband and my boys 100% of myself now, instead of unintentionally holding back because I felt like such a headcase.
I am well aware that the warmth, sunshine and proximity to my old life is probably keeping me sane and happy right now. The alternative would be sitting in my little old house trying to keep sane and warm while the boys ran amuck and we all developed major cases of cabin fever. I just hope to be able to carry all of this sunshine (metaphorical and real) home with me. I can’t wait to tell my old friends about all of the dear friends I have in my life now. And, I can’t wait to tell all of the friends in my life now about the friends I had when I was younger.
It is like I have one big cohesive life again and it feels so good.
To all you computer geeks, you can say that I defragmented my hard drive and removed the partitions.
Either way… it’s a wonderful thing.
Lately, my irritation level is insatiable. If it’s not the boys it’s other crap like our standard community idiots or local politics. I’m even thinking of having this post’s title made into a t-shirt. Just in case that question comes up while I’m in Arizona… also known as “McCain country”. I’m just trying to prepare myself, ya know? Illinois seems to be front and center in politics and has been all year since Obama became so prominent; we are proud of him but absolutely abhor Gov. Blahblahbobitch.
Undoubtedly, at least once or twice I will hear something bad about the Governor and be asked just what is going on with that “hokey-ass fucktard Blahblahbobitch”. I’m sure I will hear even more unsolicited banter from McCain followers about Obama and how he is really a Muslim or a racist or a non-citizen or something of that moronic caliber. I mean, it already started today with that completely unfunny and totally rigged email about the “new fashion in mug shots” that is going around depicting “criminals” all wearing Obama t-shirts. Nevermind the fact that NONE of them are holding up the little arrestee black board with white letters that mug shots are always taken with. Half of those pics are probably DMV photos or something. The ignorance is relentless and pitiful. And even if they were all criminals who the hell cares? I should change my views on the new President-elect because 15 guilty faces donning Obama appearal showed up in my inbox today?
This kind of crap makes me want to rip my cute new little hair cut right off my head! Add to that the fact that I had to tell DramaBoy to get his socks and underwear on for a half hour today before he actually did it! Seriously?!?!?!? Then, shortly after that, juice and Dr. Pepper were spilled on the front passenger-side floor of my truck on top of the salt, ice and snow that are already ground into the floor mats.
So, when I get to Arizona I will be trading cold, salt, snow and ice for potential political discussions once my home location is revealed. Is that a fair trade-off? I guess it is considering the importance of the warmth and sunshine factor. I could be jumping the gun though. I could just be expecting the worst. But knowing my family, they will enjoy every second of the jabbing they will dish out to me. And, I will proudly don a new Obama t-shirt and rub it in their faces.
I will still have to find a clever comeback for the governor banter though. First of all, I am probably going to have to remind people that the capital of Illinois is SPRINGFIELD, not Chicago so just because I reside in Cook County, south of Chicago, it has nothing to do with the idiocy of the governor. Chicago is widely known for it’s OWN crooked ways so we can’t have Governor Blahblahbobitch upstaging that!
I really am getting ahead of myself though… I mean, I’m not even in Arizona yet. The governor hasn’t quite been impeached yet (God willing he does get impeached!). I’m just highly irritated by several things at once and I’m taking out my aggression on my keyboard. Poor little keyboard. Poor readers… if there are any left of course.
Tonight, I’m going to drink wine with my husband after the kids are in bed and I’m going to rest my sleepy head on my squishy pillow at bedtime and revel in the stuff that makes me smile….. puppy dogs, rainbows, bubbles and text messaging.
I didn’t do a year end post this year. Probably because yesterday was spent doing errands from 10am to 3pm, including getting my hair cut, finally! Then I had to get home and get ready for the party at our friend’s house last night on top of doing about 100 other things simultaneously. It was one of my busiest days on record… but it was a good busy. Besides, recapping a year like 2008 would kind of be like jamming dull pencils into my own ears.
Ok fine, it wouldn’t be that bad. 2008 did have plenty of good moments intertwined with all the crappy ones. So, I will cherish those in my own way and try my best to always remember the good that we gained from the bad. I bid 2008 a happy farewell and look forward to the clean slate that began 10 hours and 36 minutes ago.
Our new years eve was spent with our dearest friends and all of our kids. We laughed, ate, watched the kids run all over the house, drank, ate some more and laughed even more. I would not have wanted to spend it any other way… except maybe with the addition of my mom and sisters.
2009 has to be better. Last year began with my appendicitis which seemed to set the tone for the rest of the year. Who knows where this year will go. I guess we take it day by day by day….
Today we woke up late with happy boys (who passed out at the party last night around 10 and 10:30pm) and I ran out for Dunkin Donuts. There is no better way to start a new year than with smiling faces and donuts. Hubs and I may even take in a movie today, alone.
Happy new year to all of you and I hope 2009 is a great year and that you triumph over the difficult times we all know are still to come.
I went to two different high schools. Typically one high school is bad enough, but two? That’s just torture. Making friends, leaving friends, trying to make new friends; it’s a complete nightmare. I was living in Yuma, Arizona and went to Kofa High School from 1989-1992. I started there as a Freshmen and then my parents moved us at the tail end of my Junior year. I was devastated. We moved a lot during my entire childhood so starting new schools was becoming second nature for me. However, I thought Yuma was it. I thought that I would finally go through the ranks and actually graduate with all the friends I had in junior high. And I was so close, too.
We moved to Yuma from Minnesota in 1987. In that first year I went to three different junior highs. Yuma is not a big town, at least not then it wasn’t. So how I managed to go to three different schools in one year was beyond me. But, I guess my parents were just trying to get settled and we were renting places in the beginning, before we bought a house. All three places happened to be on different ends of town which meant three different schools.
In the summer of 1988, before I was to start the 8th grade, my parents sent me back to Minnesota for a month so I could visit family. It was a great summer because I was with familiar faces, having fun and my parents were not around. Unbeknownst to me at the time, things were happening back in Yuma that they were not telling me. One was that my father was in the hospital… nothing new, but they didn’t want to worry me while I was away. The other was that they bought a house in a different part of town. Subsequently that brought on junior high number three.
My mother picked me up from the airport and proceeded to drive me home in a direction we had not gone before. I was confused. Then, we pulled into the driveway of a little house with a big welcome home sign on the single car garage door. I was shocked and excited. She escorted me in the door and showed me to my room. It was the first door on the right, just on the other side of the living room wall. They had set it all up for me and hung pink curtains on the large window that faced the front yard and the street.I was happy and felt like I was finally going to be settled.
We lived in that house almost 4 years, almost a record at the time. It was little and looked exactly like all the other houses in the entire neighborhood. I think the neighborhood was called the Manor. It wasn’t the richest part of town so it was kind of embarrassing to say I lived in the “Manor” when the other kids had bigger, fancier houses in other parts of town. I would venture to guess that these homes were all built as military housing back in the 1940’s or 1950’s but I’m really not sure. Yuma has a large Marine Corp air station so it’s a military town. And, this neighborhood where our new house was just happened to be a couple miles from the base. Every day we would hear fighter jets flying overhead. It was awesome… and loud.
For those four years I was pretty happy living there. I had my ups and downs but I did have fun. Yuma was interesting and boring all rolled into one desolate little desert border-town package. It was interesting because of the proximity to Mexico and having the Marine base. It was boring because there wasn’t much to do except party in the desert, hang out at the river and go to the Dunes outside of town in California.
I vividly remember one day I was at home with my family and I heard a strange noise. I saw police cars driving slowly up and down our street. I followed the noise to the back of the house and into my sister’s room. Her room faced the backyard and there was a large bush right outside her window. The window sill was about 2 1/2 feet from the floor so as I looked out I could look right down to the ground. There, beneathe her window, huddled over and hiding was a man. He was an illegal who was running from the police. I don’t remember if I said anything when I saw him or not but I know I ran out the front door and flagged down a police officer.
The chase began out of our yard and down the alley. They caught him and I’m sure he was sent back to Mexico immediately. That is just one of the sad parts of living in a border town. Though, finding an illegal hiding in your backyard really isn’t a normal occurrence.
So many personal things happened in Yuma. Family turmoil and a lot of the stories about my dad come from that time (written about in other posts under the category My Father). A lot of my bad memories and good ones come from Yuma. It seemed like those years were a catalyst for so many other things that happened down the road. Regardless, once I left junior high and started high school I thought things were looking up. I had some really good friends and I felt like I was going to go all the way to graduation with them, FINALLY!
Then, in March of 1992 my parents told me we were moving to Mesa, Arizona. I was one month away from ending my Junior year at Kofa. I was getting so excited to start my senior year with all my friends. We started as Freshmen and were on the verge of being the ruling class of Kofa. My excitement was short-lived, though.
I started my new school, Red Mountain, in Mesa in April of 1992. A month later my grades were semi-poor and my dad decided to make me drop-out. Yes, you read that correctly. My father made me drop out of my new high school because my grades were poor (gee, I wonder why they were poor dad!) and said that I should just quit school and get a job if I can’t get good grades. But, he wasn’t quick enough on the draw. My life had already gone to hell right before that.
In my first week at that school I met a boy and we started dating. The second he found out that I wasn’t going to sleep with him he spread rumors around the entire school about me. I had girls wanting to fight me; the new girl with hardly any friends. It was yet another nightmare in what seemed to turn into a long string of nightmares in a short month’s time. I think that part of me was glad when my dad made me quit. At least I was able to escape that whole mess.
My dad didn’t speak to me for a month after he made me quit school. My dad scared the shit out of me, so standing up for myself at that time was not an option. I did whatever daddy wanted me to do. So, I just walked around the house on eggshells waiting for him to talk to me. I looked for jobs but had no luck. Summer finally came and I met another boy whom I knew from Red Mountain. He had been dating a friend of mine that I had met in my brief stint in school. When I ran into him over the summer he was single, and so was I. We were never apart for the next 2 years or so. We both saved each other, I think.
I was able to start my senior year at Red Mountain, though credit-wise I was still a Junior. I had a full load of classes all day while all the other seniors had only a handful and most only had to be in school for half a day. But, I ended up graduating on time with a 3.5gpa.
Right after graduation in September of 1993 I left for basic training in Orlando, Florida and started an entirely new chapter of my life. I turned 18 in my fourth week of basic training (the halfway point) and the Navy gave me one hell of a birthday gift; a medical discharge. Once again my dreams were crashing and burning all around me and I had to start over on another path.
All this time I thought I hated high school and that I was just a hopeless nerd with no life. I didn’t go to parties like all my friends did. I had a dysfunctional father but didn’t know it at the time. And I thought everyone made fun of me or hated me in school. But, when I pulled out my yearbooks yesterday I started to smile. This was an unexpected reaction. Then I started laughing! I sat at this table for almost two hours just going through page after page and trying to remember those days. I cringed at the hair styles and clothes. I read what my friends wrote in my yearbooks and laughed more. But I should mention, this reaction was only from my two Kofa yearbooks. I have one from my Freshmen and Sophmore years. I didn’t stay long enough to get my Junior yearbook. The other yearbook I have is from Red Mountain. I am not even in it. I somehow missed my Senior picture day. How apropos.
Maybe my disdain for high school stems only from my Red Mountain days. Maybe that is what soured me all these years. Because, when I think of my Kofa years I really do smile. I may have been a nerd and a lot of people who signed my book may have been people that were just trying to be nice. I know I dressed funny and did stupid things… like rear-ending Buffey’s boyfriend’s truck while leaving school one day. But, I think those were good, fun times in my life that I should remember instead of trying to forget, like I have spent all these years doing.
I am starting to realize something a bit more startling though with this recent trip down memory lane. Instead of feeling like I have blossomed and become better since those days I think I have done the opposite. I have become mean, surly, bitchy and overly sarcastic. I’m not sure what to do now. Do I keep going forward with my jaded attitude or do I try to regain a bit of my youthful sweetness that I may have had. Just when I think I find my true self I get run off the tracks again.
How am I ever going to figure out the real me? It is exhausting.
